On 16 July, the European Commission tabled its plan for the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) , the EU’s seven-year budget for 2028–2034. As summer recedes and Brussels’ engine whirs back to life, it is a good moment to look under the bonnet. Europe’s seven-year budget is never just an accounting exercise. It is a statement of priorities, and, this time, an admission that the world has changed faster than Brussels’ machinery was designed to move. Why now?  Because th